Working behind the scenes as Marketing and Communications Manager, Nate has transformed many of the outward facing aspects of the School. Whether that is the overhaul of the School website or working with media to promote our School externally, Nate has been a part of many recent changes. Please enjoy the rich history and story behind Nate Ayling.
When did you join Taylors’?
I joined Merchant Taylors’ in December 2023, a week before Doctor’s Day, which was a pleasant induction into life at the School.
What most excites you about your role and what got you in to it?
I have had a varied career in marketing having worked at a variety of international tech companies, but I have also always enjoyed teaching and training. Prior to coming to Taylors’ I worked teaching digital marketing apprenticeships and degree apprenticeships. While I loved the teaching aspects of the role, I also found myself missing the operational elements of a marketing departments. I was fortunate to secure a position at Merchant Taylors’ that combines my love of teaching and learning with a job that is hugely varied and very dynamic.
What I love about working here versus previous roles is how involved I get to be, on top of the marketing work we do in the office, I am often photographing events (and by proxy listening to fascinating external guests and seeing the incredible musical and dramatic performances put on). I help with the Ukulele Club – which I’ll remind everyone you can come along to join in GY3.2 every Tuesday in the Hour… I have also worked this year with our Young Enterprise teams to help them refine their marketing plans. These are opportunities that I would never get elsewhere, and coupled with having a fantastic team around me in both Marketing & Admissions – it’s a pretty great place to be.
What are you most proud of outside of your work at Taylors’?
For several years, I served as an on-call firefighter with Bedfordshire Fire & Rescue Service. It was a demanding role requiring me to respond to emergency calls during evenings and weekends, maintain equipment, conduct regular training, and support the community around my day job. I completed my basic training at the height of the COVID pandemic, and despite catching COVID-19 two weeks before the intense BA training week, I managed to catch my breathe long enough to learn how to fight fires and work in all of the protective equipment that comes with the job. In my time as an on-call firefighter, I found a real sense of pride in helping my local community, not just in emergency situations, but with fire safety visits, welfare checks to assist vulnerable people and the ever-enjoyable station open days (which might explain my excitement for the Open Mornings here…).
Something else I am proud of is the work of a charitable organisation, Offset Projects, for which I am a trustee. They work to advocate for, platform and collaborate with people under 25 to encourage them to get involved with the arts in a way that is both personally fulfilling and of social good to the areas in which they live. They have worked on a variety of projects in and around Milton Keynes that have seen young artists and those who never even considered a creative career being key in the decision making of city beautification projects that will stand the test of time.
What did you study?
After finishing my A-Levels, I was unsure of what I wanted to do in terms of further studies. I had always wanted to join the Army, which I did, commissioning into the Royal Corps of Signals in 2014. While I was in the Army, I wanted to continue learning and decided that if I was going to be learning around a busy job it should be something that I found genuinely interested. As a life long gamer, I decided to pursue a degree in Computer Games Design and Environment Art, some of my work from which you can see below. Over four years, I developed a much deeper understanding of a creative medium I had always enjoyed and gained art skills that I still use today, whether working on digital or physical art projects. While I never made it into the games industry, I still think studying something I loved was a worthwhile use of my time across my studies.
What piece of media would you recommend and why?
As mentioned above, I have always enjoyed videogames. One of my favourite genres are fantasy role-playing games, the best of which – in my opinion – is Divinity: Original Sin 2. With the narrative of the game being heavily text based, it blends interesting writing, with the ability to also lean on cinematic visual storytelling through the games environments and characters. One of my favourite aspects of this style of game is the ability to inhabit a character and have a real impact on the outcome of the story which I think is something that videogames are uniquely suited to offer versus any other type of media.
